Why is it that Israel’s military campaigns seem always to provoke the media, human rights groups both inside and outside Israel and governments all over the world to accuse the Jewish State of ‘war crimes’?
Why is it that no other state or political entity ,where breaches of international law are much clearer cut, are not subject to the same media attention and are not described in the same terms?
Let me provide a few examples:
Much has been made of Israel’s apparent attacks against schools and hospitals in Gaza. John Ging, head of UNRWA in Gaza, publicly proclaimed that ‘a war crime MAY have been committed’. Subsequently Ging said that he never claimed that the UN school had been hit at all but the shells landed in the vicinity killing about 30 people. Very little was made of this subtle difference in the media and most people would still think that Israel targeted a school for no good reason. Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, reports of Tamil Tigers shelling a school killing 10 people and wounding dozens of others does not prompt outrage in the media or calls for war crimes investigations. But more pertinent is the never-mentioned fact that Hamas deliberately time their rocket attacks to coincide with the beginning of school in Sderot and elsewhere in order to target children. Hamas rockets, as indiscriminate and unguided missiles, are a flagrant breach of international law in any case, but little, if anything, is made of this in the media.
Israel is accused of targeting civilian dwellings (which it claims were used by Hamas fighters). More war crimes investigations are called for by various governments and organisations across the world. But, when a house in Helmand province is struck by the British army, killing an entire family, everyone accepts their explanation that the Taleban were using that house to fire at the British troops, but by the time they responded the terrorists had fled and the occupants of the house became the victims of the Taleban’s deliberate attempt to cause as many civilian casualties as possible to discredit the Coalition. Sound familiar? So when will there be a war crimes investigation against the British army?
Again, Sri Lanka; this time a hospital is hit and has to close. Accusations ensue on both sides as to the culprits. Did the UN call for an investigation? If so, do we hear about it?
Stephen Sackur of the BBC recently interviewed Isaac Herzog , Israel’s Welfare and Social Services Minister, and pressed him strongly about the need for an independent investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. Herzog reacted strongly stating that Israel was a fully democratic country quite able to make its own investigations into its own conduct of the war. Has anyone ever suggested an independent investigation into Hamas’s war crimes, breaches of human rights, extra-judicial executions and murders of fellow citizens? Has anyone proposed such investigations into the Sri Lankan, Sudanese, Chinese, British or American conduct in the conflicts that they are involved in and trumpeted such proposals loudly on prime-time television? It is only Israel that is involved in a direct existential threat against implacable enemies who have torn up every article of decent human behaviour and ethical conflict. Meanwhile, only Israel makes 125,000 phone calls and drops millions of leaflets warning Gazans to leave the area before an attack; only Israel takes lawyers to the battlefield to confirm the legality of any military action.
I don’t ask that Israel be given exemption from criticism, I just wonder why they are not treated like any other democratic state. I think I may know the answer. Do you?